Substances That Aggravate Anxiety (1)
Caffeine
Several of my clients could directly trace their sleeping problems and sometimes their first panic attack to caffeine. Coffee is the most obvious, but there are many other sources of caffeine, including tea, cocoa, Coca-Cola, Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Tab, Pepsi, chocolate, and even decaffeinated coffee! Many over-the-counter drugs also contain caffeine, among them Anacin, Caffedrine, Empirin, Excedrin, Pre-mens Forte, Vanquish, Vivarin, and No-Doz.
Caffeine stimulates several different parts of your body. It releases adrenaline into your body just as if you’re undergoing stress. It also pours norepinephrine into your brain, causing you to feel more awake and alert. By keeping you in a constant state of arousal, your adrenal glands and other portions of your body are kept in a state of emergency. This can be very stressful.
This kind of over arousal makes you more vulnerable to anxiety and panic. Add to that stress the fact that caffeine acts as a diuretic that pushes calming minerals and antistress B vitamins out in your urine. Caffeine is not something you want to subject your body to.
Klonopin helps you relief anxiety and restore your life.
Wean yourself off caffeine, but do it slowly. Gradually mix in a half cup of decaffeinated with half a cup of coffee. Slowly increase the decaffeinated coffee over a week or so until you are drinking decaffeinated coffee only. Better yet, do the same with caffeinated tea and herbal tea. Do the same with cocoa and carob and chocolate candy and carob candy. Also, start drinking noncaffeinated sodas or mixing them as suggested above.
